thrift and the use of her talents: a tale with true moral sense for the middle-class
children at whom it was directed.
Newbery also contributed to the burgeoning schoolbook market with a series of lesson
books, The Circle of the Sciences (1745–1748), and books like Oliver Goldsmith’s An
History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son (1764). (Goldsmith
probably also wrote Goody Two-Shoes). Indeed, most of Newbery’s output for the youth
market was intended for schools or for home tutoring; only sixteen or so were mainly for
entertainment. His schoolbooks were generally weightier and more expensive: the
Account of the Constitution and Present State of Great Britain (1759) cost 2 shillings. The
more light-hearted items cost less and were usually printed in several editions: ‘Abraham
Aesop’s’ Fables in Verse was priced at 6d and was in its sixth edition by 1768. However,
at a time when chapbooks were being sold for Id, even these were expensive by the
standards of the day. Newbery was intent on selling to the middle classes and aspiring
artisans, not the mass of the labouring population.
Newbery’s great talent was his understanding of the new market for children’s books
and schoolbooks: exploiting that market required tenacity of purpose and the
development of a class of books which appealed to both parents and children.
Advertising and distribution was also essential to ensure a good volume of sales. By
marketing his books through the important provincial newspapers of the day, and using
the newspaper distribution outlets, Newbery maximised the penetration of his books
into rural areas from his famous shop at the Bible and Sun in St Paul’s Churchyard,
London, which was the focus for his activities. Newbery’s later years were his busiest
period; between 1755 and 1767, when he died, he published around 390 adult and
children’s books, although his contribution to the development of a children’s publishing
trade has tended to obscure his many other business activities. He probably made more
as a purveyor of quack medicines than from the children’s books, and his newspaper
interests and magazine publishing were also of considerable value.
Educational Theorists and Children’s BooksJohn Newbery’s output was largely dependent on the school and home tutoring market,
with his educational items selling to the proprietors of the increasing numbers of
academies and private schools springing up throughout the country and to parents eager
to enhance their children’s education. The education of the young was becoming of
increasing significance as social expectations developed, and the middle classes—
including women—had more time for the leisurely pursuit of reading. Good schooling
was becoming a necessity. The hallmark of a gentleman, and increasingly a
gentlewoman, was not only a thorough grounding in basic reading and writing skills but
also a knowledge of the classical or modern languages, arithmetic, geography—even a
little science such as astronomy or mechanics. John Locke was not offering new ideas in
Some Thoughts Concerning Education when he recommended a carefully judged
curriculum designed to meet the needs of pupils on the basis that knowledge should be
impressed on young and untouched minds: the tabula rasa or blank sheet principle. His
argument, which he had begun in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689),
was, however, hugely influential. At least fourteen editions of his educational treatise were
142 TYPES AND GENRES